Chris_Pelham

Well, the M3 wouldn’t support iPad Pro’s new screen and they apparently had enough M4 chips ready so we got an M4 iPad Pro. As others have said, it may take them additional months to have enough M4’s to update all the other lines as well as to manufactures the M4 Pro, Max, and Ultra chips.  One other possible explanation for a delay could be that Apple wants to include Thunderbolt 5 in some or all of these models and bring out an updated Studio Display to take advantage.

While Apple does sometimes just update a particular spec, it seems like when they multiple advancements at hand, they like to roll them out all at once rather than piecemeal. I couldn’t really see Apple announcing M4 (but not M4 Pro, Max, and Ultra) desktops now and then 4-9 months later adding those faster chips along with Thunderbolt 5 and whatever else might be upgraded. Probably there is not that much demand for the base model Studios and Mac Pros? And the advancement of the M4 would not be much news if it is slower than the high-end M2s so who would upgrade to that rather than wait a few more months for the truly high-power models? I get that its frustrating to know that the M4 is out and yet we seemingly won’t be able to use it in a Mac for awhile, but we can also see it as, you know, Christmas came early for the iPad Pro, the glass is half full rather than half empty, and lots more goodies are coming soon!

I enjoyed it, too. And while we all know that Apple, or any other corporation doing a similar event, will put their most flattering facts forward in these things, I was actually impressed by what they announced regarding their environmental and clean energy achievements. I prefer this delivery to Tim Cook reading off bullet points, even if a skit takes longer to convey the info. Could there have been some jokes or something thrown in there? Maybe, but that probably would have made it run even longer. 

I find it hard to believe that Apple might debut the first M3 3nm chip in the 13" MacBook Pro and thereby outclass the 14" and 16" MacBook Pros, which are surely much more popular with professionals, or in a Mac mini rather than the Mac Studio or Mac Pro, because it would make the product line specs look funny. I can believe they might try reinvigorating the iMac line with the new chips, especially if they simultaneously launch a larger iMac or bring back the iMac Pro.  I guess the main reason to believe that Apple might start with more consumer oriented machines would be that Apple would want to wait until it has the M3 Pro, Max, and Ultra chips ready before updating the higher-end machines.  They could wait and update all of them at once, but maybe they need to start pumping out the basic M3s first to get the manufacturing process down. 

mjtomlin said:

9secondkox2 said:

Kinda feeling Apple will buck history here and update quite a few Mac’s this year to m4 status for multiple reasons:

a) it cleans up the generational mess over the last couple of years. 

b) it puts further distance between apple silicon and Qualcomm’s disingenuous comparisons. 

C) it allows for Apple Intelligence to shine on all Mac’s, showcasing Apple as the AI leader. 

Between a and b, apple gets seen as the place to go for top tier ai. 

D) M3 is/was expensive to fab.

Personally I think Apple will make the most of the M3 line until it becomes cost effective to ditch it. Sticking those SoC's in their highest selling systems; laptops and iMac is an indication that's what's going on here, especially after debuting the M4 in the latest iPad Pro. Any new Macs from this point forward will have the M4, and I think all of the aforementioned systems will be the last to get upgraded to it.

This year (after macOS Sequoia is released) we'll see the rest of the "low sales" systems get upgraded to the M4...

Mac mini M4/Pro
Mac Studio M4 Max/Ultra
Mac Pro M4 Ultra

Then next Spring/Summer, the others will get updated. (And with the debut of the iMac M4, we'll finally get back the larger iMac Pro M4 Pro/Max)

I think that is very plausible and even likely as long as they have the Max and Ultra chips ready.

paisleydisco said:

The typical 'too bad. my credit card is waiting. Apple is taking too long' crowd has entered the chat.

Meanwhile their current computer does everything they need everyday.

It remains to be seen if all the incoming AI tools will run as well on M2 as they will on M4. But it also remains to be seen how much those will ever be needed on desktops, given that most if not all people using those desktops will also have portable Apple devices with M4 (or will soon enough) that will run those AI apps. How many AIs do we need to communicate with at a time lol?  Take that out of the equation and it's more of just a strange look that the iPad Pro (and soon the iPhone) has the newest chip while many others are 2 generations behind, but as you say the M2 machines, especially with those with Pro or better chips, are still really good in practice.

One possible reason for releasing an Apple television set would be to pull in more viewers for its AppleTV service. You would know the TV has no spyware, and if it was pretty compelling, maybe a 6K or 8K panel that displays HD and 4K beautifully, is very easy to set up, and can connect to multiple (more than 2) HomePods for effective Dolby Atmos sound, and also had Apple Intelligence and web cam built in for Facetime, Zoom, etc., it could attract buyers who were not necessarily already subscribing to AppleTV.

It has not been disabled on watches purchases prior to the ban.

Hmm, there are about 850 million active Windows 10 users and about 1.5 billion IOS users and another 100 million + MacOS users last I checked. So Apple has about double the number of active users. While Microsoft’s situation and outlook remain strong, I’d say they have been and need to be reacting to Apple more than vice versa at this point. It is also increasingly advantageous to develop for Apple machines. 

Given how big and wealthy Apple is, isn’t it entirely possible that they could keep Intel machines on the market as long as they want, if there is a need? Last time they switched from Motorola to Intel pretty quickly because Motorola wasn’t coming out with chips. Intel will remain in the game for the foreseeable future and will continue making competitive desktop chips I imagine. And if even their desktop chips become uncompetitive, then I don’t think people will miss them so much, will they?

paisleydisco said:

The brand new Mac mini with the M4 Pro chip offers three Thunderbolt 5 ports. The regular M4 chip ships with three Thunderbolt 4 ports.

Why do you guys suppose Thunderbolt 5 isn’t being offered on the new iMac?